


Forgiven

by orphan_account



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:50:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5697394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lewis's new (mostly) ghostly friend Greg helps him back on his feet after the events that took place Mystery Skulls music video, they return to the world of the living to learn some disturbing truths regarding Arthur, Mystery, Greg's past, and a strange woman named Artemis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to Fix a Broken Heart

**Author's Note:**

> VIVI: simthemuse just wants you all to know that she put a lot of time and effort into planning this, so please give kudos cuz this is her first story on this website and it would be really cool if you would be nice to her.  
> ARTHUR: Yikes. Run-on sentence.  
> LEWIS: You stay out of this Arthur, I think Vivi did a good job.   
> ARTHUR: Really? Last I checked, run-on sentences was the last thing simthemuse wanted. And second, I don't think she put in any time or effort into this story.   
> LEWIS: Shut up, Arthur.  
> ARTHUR: You don't get to tell me what to do!  
> VIVI: Fight, fight!  
> (While the two are going head-to-head in a completely lopsided battle that leaves Lewis the obvious winner in the background, Mystery is facepalming in the foreground.)  
> MYSTERY: bark bark   
> *translation: just ignore them and keep reading*

Lewis was very upset that his attempt to win back Vivi and get his revenge on Arthur totally failed.   
His ghostly body was more tangible now, thanks to him being in the Dead Zone.   
He walked into a dead-man’s diner & inn called the Heartless Pearl. He sat himself on one of the red, cushy stools and sighed as he waited to be served.   
The waitress’s name was Greg. No, it wasn’t sort for anything. Her parents just really wanted a boy, and when they got a girl instead chose to name her Greg anyways.   
She had untidy locks of hair going every which way, like bed-head only messier. She, like all the main people in Lewis’s life, had a colour theme: silver hair, a grey long-sleeved shirt that went slightly below her ribs with a dark slate t-shirt under it, and blue-grey pants. But the most unsettling feature about her was the fact that she was a skeleton. Her eyes were nothing more than darkened sockets. Greg’s face was flat, no sign of a nose ever having existed. The area near her moving, dark hole for a mouth was cracked and dry. Unlike Lewis, Greg didn’t have a human form.   
He gave a deep sigh.  
“The usual,” she asked him, and without any response turned to face the wall behind her started to pour a strange glowing liquid from a bottle on a shelf.  
He grunted, not knowing what else to do or say.  
“Did I not tell you that taking the ‘vengeful spirit’ approach was gonna fail?” She spun around and set the shot glass in front of him.   
“But it worked for Frank,” Lewis argued, “and he got to move on.”  
“Well Frank’s Frank. You’re talking about a man who was stranded in the middle of the ocean for months before ending up in Africa, where he was taken by his fellow Europeans who shipped him off to America as a slave. And all that was before he eloped with the daughter of an Indian chief, and before he found himself in Japan somehow where he became a ninja. He was a complicated guy with a complicated guy. You’re not Frank, you’re Lewis. You’re soft, you’re kind. Trying to be a rage-filled phantom isn’t you.”  
Lewis downed the strange-looking drink in a single gulp. “I know, but everyone is telling me that’s the way to do it.”  
“Well then they’re stupid. If your goal is love-related, you have to approach your past with love in your heart.”  
He wished he could take her words to heart, but that was destroyed. Lewis gently lifted his hand to show her the cold, lifeless blue shell his soul resided in.   
The dark circles that could be considered her ‘eyes’, respectively, widened. “Oh, Lewis. You poor thing. You know what? First order of business is getting that heart of yours fixed.”  
His head shot up, startled. “What? How?”  
“We’re going back to the real world, and we’re going to get you fixed.”  
He gave an uneasy and tense expression.   
“Sorry, bad choice of words.”  
Lewis slightly eased. Greg pivoted on her bony heels with his empty glass wrapped in her skeleton fingers. She carried it with her to the kitchen, and returned back with a proud smile.  
“I don’t understand,” he added with confusion, “I’m out of Train Tokens, and you need Train Tokens to-“  
“Yes, Lew, I know.” She halted him with a limp hand gesture that told him to shut up. “I’ve been in the Dead Zone since before you were even conceived. I know the rules. You have to have Train Tokens to go to and from the Living Realm and the Dead Zone, and each person living or dead is only entitled to one round-trip Train Token. But, in all my years of experience, I was able to find a way to cheat the system.”  
She leaned closer so that her flat, round head was within inches of his nose. “I won’t tell you how,” Greg whispered, “but I have more than one Token. A lot more. Hold on.” She ducked under the counter, and Lewis sat there as he listened to strange clanking and fighting and shattering noises. Multiple bloodcurdling, undead wails was all it took to have Lewis more than slightly worried but didn’t have long to entertain his thoughts before a worn-out Greg resurfaced.   
“You have a little…” Lewis pointed to the blood spatter on her face and clothes. “On your…”  
She flicked some silvery blood-crusted hair out of her face and quietly slammed something in front of him.   
They both looked down at the object. It was a rusty iron box with paisley-pattern engravings covering the lid. Greg jiggled the steel lock and phased her fingertip through it, something Lewis didn’t think was possible for a ghost to do in the Dead Zone. It was then that he remembered she was a Plasmer, or a half-ghost.   
Plasmers usually had one parent that was a ghost, and one parent that was human. Living beings have otherworldly powers the moment they step into the Dead Zone, much like ghosts in the Living Realm. So since she was half-alive, she possessed limited amounts of said power.   
The box opened, and multiple glittering squarish coins were inside. “You can only have one round-trip Token, but they never said anything about one-way Tokens. You can travel throughout the multiple dimensions as you please!” Greg realized she spoke a little too loud, as a few other customers started getting curious.   
Lewis smiled at her, beginning to imagine the perfect reunion with Vivi, no Arthur there to spoil the moment. Just him and her, dancing. Longingly gazing into each other’s eyes, stepping round and round as the music box melody played seamlessly in the air.   
He was snapped out of this hazy dream when Greg insistently began snapping her cold fingers in his face. “Hey, Lew. Stop drooling and give me an answer!”  
“Huh? What?”  
“Are you gonna take me up on my offer or not?”  
Without hesitation he responded, “Yes. Let’s go fix my broken heart.”  
As they embarked on that train, on their way back to the Living Realm, the two (mostly) dead friends had no idea what was in store for them.


	2. You Mean We're Actually Going Through With This?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lewis and Greg make it to Vivi's "home", and they help her unlock her memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GREG: Okay, so can I be the first to do it?  
> LEWIS: Actually, I wanted to do it.  
> VIVI: What about me?  
> MYSTERY: bark bark woof  
> *translation: This is pointless. Can we please just get this over with?*  
> ARTHUR: Come on, she's not even a real character. And Lewis, you're the main character. I'm sure you and Vivi will get plenty of screen-time. But what about me? Aside from you guys talking about how I killed Lewis a year ago, my name hasn't even been brought up. I say I get to do it.  
> \--Greg rolls up her sleeve and storms up to Arthur--  
> GREG: I'll show you who's not even a real character! My fist is about to get very real all over your face, Bolt-Brain!  
> \--Arthur winces, backing up--  
> ARTHUR: Hey now, I don't want any trouble.  
> GREG: Really? Cuz to me it seems you want to join Lewis and I in the Dead-People Club! Well guess what- it's club day, and we're recruiting you!  
> ARTHUR: You wouldn't say that if you knew what simthemuse had in store for the next chapter.  
> VIVI: Art? What are you trying to hide?  
> \--simthemuse appears out of nowhere--  
> SIMTHEMUSE: Oh for God's sake do I have to do everything around here?! Okay, what they were supposed to say was this- none of these characters other than Greg so far belong to me. Mystery Skulls and all its characters belong to Mystery Ben and blah blah blah. Second! You had better start reading, cuz if I don't get at least two kudos for each chapter then I'm cutting this story.  
> LEWIS: Which means...?  
> SIMTHEMUSE: The story is dead, and so are the characters.  
> LEWIS: What?! You can't let that happen, ao3-ers!  
> GREG: Oh stop whining Lew, you're already dead.  
> \--Arthur shudders--  
> ARTHUR: But I'm not.  
> \--Vivi stares at simthemuse in shock--  
> VIVI: Oh my god you're actually real.

Lewis felt a gust of wind behind his back, and he and Greg watched as the train slowly faded in the distance.  
“We’re really doing this,” he murmured under his breath.  
Greg nudged him, the sound of her bones clanking around making her sound more fragile than she was. “You bet it, Lew. But I have all the faith in the world that you can pull this off.”  
“But what if Vivi is still upset over our last…incident?”  
She gave a careless hand gesture like it was nothing. “Meh, that’s the past. And based on what you told me about her, she’s probably gonna give a fangirl shriek then invite us in to investigate our very existence.” Her ‘eyes’ widened. “Aw crap, she’s gonna have a field day with me.”  
Lewis placed a sympathetic hand on his friend, slightly disturbed but not at all surprised by the thought of his girlfriend harassing Greg.  
They left the empty forest they were in and continued to walk, until they reached a run-down warehouse of a building with a flickering neon sign reading, ‘Red Motel- Vacancy’. There were maybe a few cars in the parking lot, and the fire engine red paint was chipping away. The windows were musty and old, just like the cracked cement and the dead flowers.  
Greg snickered as they passed the dying Vacancy sign, muttering some kind of pun regarding the word.  
Lewis fidgeted with every aspect of his human form, worried and scared.  
“You sure she lives in a motel?”  
“Unless she actually decided to get a real job and felt like leaving her shambled suite, I doubt it. This place, as much of an eyesore as it is, is her home.”  
“Wow. Weird girl.”  
Lewis gave Greg a strange look. “Interesting hearing YOU of all people say that.”  
Greg made a head gesture that would suggest she was rolling her eyes, but since she didn’t have eyes it was hard to tell.  
Vivi’s suite number burned in his mind- 2A.  
It was on the first floor, and had a big wad of mail jammed in the plastic cylinder that everyone in the area knew to be her makeshift mailbox.  
Lewis reached his hand out to knock on the white linoleum door, but pulled it back. “What if she’s at work? What if she doesn’t want to remember? What if she-“  
“Dude,” Greg retorted, “it’s four in the morning. You think she’ll be off to work this early? And I have a question for you- what if you stopped playing the ‘what if’ game, put on your big-boy jammies, and approached this situation calmly and bravely?” She placed her bony fingers on his broad purple shoulder with relative ease thanks to her being the only person Lewis knew to be even remotely as tall as him.  
He clenched his fists and meekly rapped his knuckles on the door.  
“Louder, DORK,” Greg sighed.  
So Lewis did so. He kept knocking until he was practically slamming the door repeatedly.  
A tired voice emanated from within. “Alright, alright. Calm down, I’m getting the door. If you break it you’ll have to…” The owner of the voice, a woman with short and unkempt blue hair and blue eyes. She wore a sky blue footed onesie with a navy blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She had apparently just woken up, since she had a steaming coffee mug in one hand and a phone in the other.  
The moment she saw her visitors, the blue-clad young woman dropped the tissue box propped in the crook of her arm and the purple bags under her eyes dissipated instantly. Instead they were replaced with fangirl squeals and a bright smile. “Oh my GOD! Ghosts!”  
Lewis raised his eyebrow. “How could you tell?”  
“Meh, your phony human skin might fool the other mortals around here,” she snorted, “but not me!” Vivi turned her attention to Greg. “OH MY GOD YOU LOOK EVEN COOLER!” She dove in to grab Greg’s hand but the half-dead skeleton girl flinched away.  
“Please don’t,” she practically begged.  
Vivi stood up straighter, widening the entry into her house. “Come on in, both of y’all. All ghosts are welcomed into the home of Vivi the Magnificent! I...uh, hope you’re okay with me being a ghost hunter but I’ll put that obligation to the side if that means one-on-one interaction with you guys!”  
Greg uneasily stepped into this weird woman’s house, shuddering at the sight of a Ghostbusters movie poster framed on a wall in the living room. The inside was an absolute mess. There was a small ten-by-five kitchen and the rest was mostly bedroom with a door leading to a bathroom. Everything from pay stubs to taxes to drawings of anime nekos were sprawled all over the floor, perhaps chunks of dog food here and there.  
The sound of jingling and a small pitter-patter was followed by a mostly white dog with a strange, almost human-like feel to him. After all, he did have rather humanoid hair and he DID wear glasses.  
Vivi set her mug and phone on the tiny bedside coffee table to make room for Mystery to trot into her arms.  
The sight of a dog made Greg tense up even more.  
“What you afraid of dogs,” Lewis teased.  
“Yes, and I’m not ashamed of that,” Greg whispered in response, “YOU’RE the one who should be embarrassed. Just look at how your girlfriend’s turned out.”  
They both gazed at the whirlwind of junk that could hardly be considered livable, yet still was called home.  
Lewis smirked. “Looks like she hasn’t changed a bit.”  
If Greg had the appearance of a normal skeleton, her jaw literally would have fallen and dropped to the floor at that news flash.  
Vivi cheerily spun around, sniffling. “I took today off cuz of a head-cold, which means I get to spend the whole day doing experiments on you and interrogating you! Let’s start with YOU, Skulsy!”  
Greg started to shake. Lewis didn’t have to look at her, he could hear her bones rattling. “Me? No way, Freak. And second, my name ain’t Skulsy. It’s GREG.” She leaned in to whisper something into Lewis’s ear. “Can you get this over with already? I was born and raised in the Dead Zone and she’s giving ME the creeps.”  
Lewis waved her away with his intangible hand, and hastily floated closer to Vivi.  
“Aren’t you confrontational,” she snickered.  
“Vivi.”  
“Did you hear that, Mystery? He said my name! Wait, how do you know my name?”  
“Maybe because you said it ten million times,” Greg shouted with her arms flailing in the air.  
“And…”Lewis added, drawing himself closer with a hint of intimacy and longing in his voice, “Because I used to know you. While I was alive.”  
“Really?!”  
“Yeah. And when I died I accidentally made you forget all about me in the hopes that it would spare you the pain of loss.”  
“Wow. Can ghosts do that?”  
“Some of us can, others can’t.”  
“So…you’re here to make amends so you can pass on?”  
“Pretty much.”  
“Neat!...Were we close at all?”  
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He turned to Greg. “Hey Miss ‘I-Know-The-Ins-And-Outs-Of-The-Dead-Zone’, maybe you could tell me how to make her remember me?”  
“S-sure,” Greg stammered, “just touch her. Don’t get too gushy, just a tap and that should do it.”  
“Are you alright with…?”  
“Stop asking me for permission and do it already,” Vivi exclaimed.  
Lewis’s hand trembled as he reached out to touch her arm, but never had he been so paralyzed with fear.  
She laced her fingers within his, tightly clamping down on his hand. She did this partially to comfort him, but mostly because she was just too curious to sit around and wait for him to muster up the ‘guts’ to even so much as touch her arm.  
Her eyes were filled with pink, so much so that they started to glow. A whole life was rewritten, but this time with a new person in the picture.  
Lewis Peppers. Big, buff, mountain of a man. Love playing violin, purple, and sports. That was just who he was. Lewis Peppers, the new kid in school that instantly had a mob of girls rallied into a frenzy every time he was within a twenty-foot radius. Lewis Peppers, the boy who randomly asked her to prom. Lewis Peppers, the boy- now a man- who asked her to marry him. Lewis Peppers, the man who was shoved off a cliff by his best friend. Killed by Arthur.  
Vivi was filled with a variety of mixed feelings when it was all over. Grief. Hatred. Love. Regret. Longing. “Lewis…”  
“Do you remember?”  
Vivi dropped Mystery, the glow having now drained from her eyes, and embraced her transparent lover.  
“I remember everything,” Vivi whispered, “and I wish I had said yes when you asked me to marry you. But then…” Her voice trailed off, but it wasn’t long before it came back and this time louder. “But then ARTHUR KILLED YOU!”  
“I know, Vivi,” Lewis responded soothingly, “but getting mad at him will only ruin the moment. Right now I just want to spend time with you and only you. There are so many things I want to say to you, so many things I want to do.”  
Greg hesitantly took a step back. “Uh…should I leave you two alone to do your thing, or are you gonna get a room? Cuz if you’re not, I think this doggy and I are gonna high-tail it outta here.”  
Lewis briefly let Vivi out of his strong embrace to face-palm, letting out an exasperated sigh. “Always ruining the moment,” he muttered under his breath. He looked up at Greg, who hadn’t heard his previous statement. “Greg? Could you do me a favour?”  
“Sure Lew, anything, I’m your wingman.”  
“Please, Greg. Shut up.”


End file.
